By Spiral

Following the conviction and death of international sex trafficker and bourgeois predator Jeffrey Epstein, and especially after the release of the files (The Epstein Island, 2026), media outlets and online spaces have been ablaze (Google Trends, 2026) withthe Satanic figure of the “paedophile”. Indeed, the demonization of minor-attracted people (MAPs) is all the rage across the political aisle. As such, we feel it is high time to intervene in the discourseand defend the paedophiles. Blaspheming further, we will stalwartly defend MAP and youth liberation.

We must start with an examination of MAPs, of our social and material conditions. MAP, or minor-attracted person, refers to anyoneunder the umbrella of “chronophilias”, or sexual-age orientations (Seto, 2012) including, but not limited to paedophilia. Most child sexual abuse is not committed by MAPs (B4U-ACT, 2026), nor do most MAPs offend. (Nor do offending MAPs always cause harm to young people. [Rind et al., 1998]) MAPs are, in fact, grotesquely oppressed in our society (MAP Mental Health and Human Rights Study Group, 2025). In addition to being legally sanctioned into loneliness and immiseration, our mental health is quite grave (B4U-ACT, 2026). Suicide rates of MAPs known to have offended are 183 times higher than average. MAPs in general face discrimination in housing, education, and employment, even when no crime has been committed. In brief, MAPs are, on the whole, destitute, and there are ample data toshow it. We’re as working-class as it gets.

Jeffrey Epstein and his associates, however, are billionaire rapists who directly uphold the capitalist order. Epstein himself was an asset of Mossad (DeBrosse, 2025) who may have also had ties to amerikkkan intelligence agencies according to former Trump secretary, Alex Acosta (Crosse, 2026). The Epstein class contains within it a sordid roster of sex traffickers (Chappell, 2025), pimps (Preska, 2024), child abusers (United Nations, 2026), all across the world, credibly guilty of crimes against humanity according to the UN (Reuters, 2026). It is clear that this level of depravity is not justthe result of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell catering to the tastes of the upper crust. Rather, this operation was orchestrated to blackmaileveryone (Black Agenda Report, 2026) into compliance with the order of Empire.

Rape is about power (Yonack, 2017). Within progressive and revolutionary circles, this statement is ubiquitous. Yet we seem to forget this scientific observation when it comes to our favourite scapegoat, the “paedophile”. Feminist luminary, Gayle Rubin, once observed that the media and police were unable to tell the difference“between rape and consent, lovers and mobsters, children of five and ‘children’ of seventeen.” (Rubin, 1981) Today, this same dangerous ignorance is generalized. In the aftermath of the release of some of the Epstein files, a response that pervades is one that criticizes “Jewish paedophiles” rather than billionaire rapists. Instead of situating the Epstein class within class struggle, the social response has favoured scapegoating yet again. Whether any members of the Epstein class are MAPs is irrelevant; in their role as the imperial bourgeoisie, they manifest real hatred and suffering for their young prey. To frame this problem as a problem of mapness is to deliberately obfuscate the enemy and cede rhetorically the territory of accountability to the enemy.

In addition to being a diverse group (B4U-ACT, 2026) like any other, MAPs have also historically participated in progressive struggles (NewgonWiki, 2026). Along with high-profile organizations like the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) and the North AmericanMan/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), there were also revolutionary manifestations like the Fallen Angels and their “Campaign Against Public Morals” in the UK. NAMBLA also had support from the International Communist League (Workers Vanguard, 2005). As far back as the beginning of Gay Liberation, MAP’s have engaged in our own “struggle for recognition” (Losurdo, 2016), just as all of the oppressed within the imperial core countries. We have fought for our humanity, for our liberation, for love (For what else is paedophilia?) and dignity, and that struggle continues today.

Against the morally bankrupt capitalists and the propaganda that seeks to let them off the hook, MAPs must come together and organize as a fighting force for our own liberation. Indeed, Gayle Rubin believed in the 1970s that we were primed for exactly this kind of struggle (Rubin, 1981). We know ourselves: we know we are not monsters, not stunted, not defective. In fact, we often have higher empathy for young people than non-MAPs (Schuler et al., 2019). And while our enemies are making the real abuse of young people worse (Malcolm et al. 2021), while they obfuscate the crimes of the major power brokers in our societies, we must turn to one another for support. We must build pro-MAP organizations capable of defending ourcommunity and of building alliances with progressive groups outside our community. We must theorize our place in class struggle and fightto overthrow the patriarchal system that consigns young people to thestatus of property, that makes excuses for powerful, predatory cishet men while locking up and demonizing paedophiles.

We must do everything in our power to support the wholesale liberation of young people from the domination of adults. Our freedomis intertwined with theirs. MAPs represent a rupture with the logic of the family (Pedersen, 2017). We believe young people to be full, autonomous, competent people with minds and hearts of their own. They have only to be liberated from the suffocating “latency” of so-called childhood. As radical psychoanalyst Mario Mieli (2018) wrote, “We revolutionary queers see in the child not so much Oedipus, or the future Oedipus, as the potentially free human being.” It is our duty as MAPs to make that potential a reality.

Works Cited

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2. Google Trends. (2026). https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=CA&q=pedophile&hl=en-US

3. Seto M.C. (2012). Is Pedophilia a Sexual Orientation?. Arch Sex Behav 41, 231-236. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-011-9882-6

4. B4U-ACT. (2026). Behavior. B4U-ACT. https://www.b4uact.org/knowthe-facts/behavior/

5. Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). A metaanalytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuseusing college samples. Psychological Bulletin 124(1), 22–53. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.22

6. MAP Mental Health and Human Rights Study Group. (2025). Injustices Facing Minor-Attracted People and Those Who Support Them in the Mental Health Community, 6-7. B4u-ACT. https://b4uact.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Report-OnInjustices-Facing-MAPs-and-Others.pdf

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11. Preska, L.A. (2024). Giuffre v. Maxwell – Unsealed Documents. EpsteinArchive. https://www.epsteinarchive.org/docs/giuffre-v-maxwell-unsealed/

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17. B4U-ACT. (2026). Personality Characteristics. B4U-ACT. https://www.b4uact.org/know-the-facts/personality/

18. NewgonWiki. (2026). Historical examples of LGBT-MAP unity. NewgonWiki. https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/Historical_examples_of_LGBTMAP_unity

19. Workers Vanguard. (2005). Sinister conviction of Boston Priest. Workers Vanguard 843, 2, 10. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/workersvanguard/2005/0843_04_03_2005.pdf

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21. Schuler, M., Mohnke, S., Amelung, T., Dziobek, I., Lemme, B., Borchardt, V., Gerwinn, H., Kärgel, C., Kneer, J., Massau, C., Pohl, A., Tenbergen, G., Weiß, S., Wittfoth, M., Waller, L.,Beier, K. M., Walter, M., Ponseti, J., Schiffer, B., Walter, H. (2019). Empathy in pedophilia and sexual offending against children: A multifaceted approach. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 128(5), 453–464. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000412

22. Malcolm, J., Heasman, A., Christiansen, C., Harper, C., Ley, D., Roche, K., Fernandez, E.M., Letourneau, E., Coleman, J., Klein, M. (2021). Child Sexual Abuse Code Recommendation. Prostasia Foundation. https://prostasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Editors-Codeof-Practice-Committee.pdf

23. Pedersen, M.R. (2017). The politics of being a pedophile: An anthropological exploration of political engagements and narratives among minor attracted people. Department of Anthropology University of Aarhus.

24. Mieli, M. (2018). Towards a gay communism: Elements of a homosexual critique. Pluto Press.